Lou Bega

Lou Bega (born David Lubega on 13 April 1975) is a German mambo musician of Italian and Ugandan descent. He is most famous for "Mambo No. 5", his 1999 remake of the Pérez Prado instrumental from 1949. Bega added his own words to the song and sampled the original version extensively. Bega's musical signature consists of combining musical elements of the 1940s and 1950s with modern beats and grooves.

Like the Afro-Cuban and mambo music that inspires his music, Lou Bega is a hybrid, born and raised in Germany as the son of a Sicillian mother and Ugandan father.

He sang and danced as a child and listened to R&B and reggae as a teenager, but a trip to Miami as an 18-year old acquainted him with the songs of the mambo kings of the '30s and '40s.

Fascinated by mambo's sounds and stylish fashions, Bega returned to Germany and created his own version of the music.

The result was the single Mambo No. 5, which went double platinum in Germany in the summer of 1999 and soon became a global hit. Later that year,